IIT-JEE candidates can breathe easy

“These are minor mistakes, but I can assure the candidates that these mistakes will not affect their performance. They will be taken care of during evaluation of papers,” IIT-JEE organising chairman Prof T S Natarajan said.

He said there were a few printing errors in the question papers. Citing examples, Natarajan said the exam papers carried a printing error as subject-heads of mathematics and physics were interchanged.

The Hindi version of the papers also carried wrong instructions. As per the English version of the paper, there were certain questions carrying 48 marks.However, the Hindi versions presented the same questions with wrong instruction that they carried 18 marks. Besides, certain question was not printed in the Hindi version also.

“All efforts will be taken to ensure that such printing mistakes do not occur in future,” Natarajan said.

Prof Rajiv Kumar of IIT Kharagpur had cited these errors in the IIT-JEE held on Sunday. A total of 4.7 lakh candidates appeared in the test.

He had also said that the papers carried certain questions having more than one correct answer which could prove disadvantageous to serious examinees.There were certain questions in Section-II carrying more than one correct answer.The instructions said candidates would get partial marking for choosing partially correct answers. These questions had no negative marks.

“This provision could have allowed students to exercise random choice. Without using mind, a student can randomly blacken all bubbles and stand to get full marks,” Rajiv had said.

Natarajan, however, said the answer of a student would be rejected if he darkens all bubbles. “Even if a student darkens the wrong answer along with some other right answer, his answer will be rejected,” he said.